


Harder to Look Away

by minglingcrab



Series: I Get To Kiss You, Baby [3]
Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Coming Out, M/M, Touring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-08
Updated: 2010-03-08
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:32:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minglingcrab/pseuds/minglingcrab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every now and then, they fight over what exactly they should do once they're both back in L.A.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harder to Look Away

**Author's Note:**

> Written for daemonicangel, who is generous and awesome and donated to the [UNICEF fund](http://inside.unicefusa.org/site/TR?pg=fund&fr_id=1090&pxfid=14320) for Haiti, which is the kind of thing we should all keep doing, maybe? If and as we can.
> 
> You don't really need to have read the first part or the second part for this to make sense, but it's infinitely better, in my opinion, if you have.
> 
> Also note that even though _I Get to Kiss You, Baby_ uses an Adam POV, the next two parts, this one included, are Kris POV, and if I ever write _more_ it'll probably go back to Adam. So don't get all confused.
> 
> Beta by cynnet, who said absurdly nice things to me and then helped me make this fic better

Every now and then, they fight over what exactly they should do once they’re both back in L.A. 

They have plenty of time to figure it out, but Kris knows that Adam likes to have things pinned down; likes to know what to expect.  Kris would rather just wait and see how they feel when the time comes, but Adam gets all aggravated if he says that outright.  This one time, Kris snaps back and says something moderately dumb about how Adam needs to lay off, because this was supposed to be easy.

“Are you serious?” Adam says, after a pause so cold that it raises the hair on Kris’ feet.

“That’s not what I—”

“Because coming out?  Not gonna be easy.  Living with the paps in your goddamn lap?  Not always so easy, no.  Being with me—not  _ fucking _  easy.”

“It is, though,” Kris says.

“What?”

Kris bites the inside of his cheek.  The thing is that maybe Kris can tell the difference between good and bad here in a way that Adam can’t, necessarily.  Because it always  _ has  _ been so inexplicably easy between them, too easy,  _ worth  _ it on some basic, essential level, and it had taken what still feels like a long time for Kris to realize that even if that didn’t make a pretty contrast to his marriage, it wasn’t the  _ problem  _ with his marriage, either.

“I lived with you for a year,” Kris says.  “I can take you.”

Adam makes an impatient sound.  “That really isn’t—”

“Yeah, I know.  I know, okay?”  He chews his gum and looks at nothing.  This is a  _ great  _ way to spend their time on the phone.  Really.  Or actually, even better, he should totally explain about Katy.  Yeah, definitely.  With him basically stalking his own boyfriend’s shows on YouTube so he can feel like a part of what Adam is up to these days, maybe  _ now  _ would be the best time to make comparisons to his relationship with his ex-wife so that Adam will stop thinking that Kris isn’t taking this seriously enough.

“I’m just tired,” Kris says.

“Yeah, no.  Could you not do that?” Adam is really irritated now.  Kris swallows quietly and rubs his eyes and the back of his neck.

”I’m not—this isn’t—”  He wants say  _ This will be over soon, can’t we just— _ No, he wants to say _  I miss you _ , but he always feels like there’s a  _ man  _ or a _ dude  _ that he’s leaving off the end of things like that, which is—he needs to get over that.  “Could you just not worry?  It really isn’t time to worry yet.”

“Oh,” Adam says brightly, “we’re back to me worrying.  Can I get a copy of this itinerary?  I seem to have misplaced mine—”

“See, you could let it go,” Kris explains, “or we can spend our phone time on this.  That’s all I’m saying.”

“Kristopher.”  And right then, somehow, Kris misses Adam so much that he can feel it—bodily—a phantom presence and absence and ache.  Mostly in his arms.  

Adam says, “Would it be easier to just fill in the blank? ‘Adam, there’s something I’m very obviously avoiding talking about, even though it can’t possibly lead to a worse experience than having you, Adam, explain that joke about the sheep to me, Kris; because …’”

“Because I don’t want to have this conversation over the phone,” Kris says tightly, pathetic.  “Could you let it go?”

Pause.

“I’m such a sucker for a pretty face,” Adam says after a minute.

It’s on the tip of Kris’ tongue to say that Adam is pretty, too, but the thought doesn’t make it out of the early stages—in his head, woven into the fabric of Adam’s voice and day-old smudged eyeliner and big freckled arms.

“Sideline catch,” he says instead, “stepping out of bounds in field goal range with four seconds on the clock.  Through the hands of three defenders.  Ican call  _ that _  pretty.”

“I call that very specific.”

“Best play I ever made in Pee Wee,” Kris admits, and savors the sound of Adam’s soft laughter.

-

_ Katy said: You need to sleep more. _

_ Kris looked down at the top of her head.  Her arm was tight around his waist as they walked to her car. _

_ I sleep plenty. _

_ Singing takes so much out of you, Katy said.  And now you have to get up early tomorrow for work. _

_ If I give up anything, Kris said, it’ll be the shoes. _

_ Katy laughed and squeezed his waist. _

-

Kris is lying on a hotel bed at three in the morning, waiting for Adam to call.

His guitar is balanced on his stomach and chest, but he can't play it at this freakish hour, so he holds the strings down with one hand so that only taut, muted sounds escape; he shapes the chords to “Blackbird” with the other.  Three a.m. isn’t really so late, not unless you’re Kris’ dad and it weirds you out to see  _ the kids _ —he always calls Kris’ friends that,  _ the kids _ —slumped all over the furniture when they could be sleeping instead—which Kris isn’t.  Meaning, he isn’t his dad.  He isn’t old enough to be thinking that three in the morning is the deep end of late nights.

He’s tired, though. 

And drifting.

Kris remembers this feeling; he can sort of think about it in real,  _ coherent _  thoughts if he stops trying to beat away the haze.  This, this little window of time, is when you stop wondering whether tour is going to make you lose your mind and just go with it, just tip over the edge and ride it out. Adam had gone on a three-day binge at around this point, eating whatever he wanted from the junk food everyone kept right on hand (although after three days he’d gotten totally grossed out and would have gone on some cleansing diet if he could have kept up his energy like that).  He’d hoarded the marshmallows and awarded them to anyone who knew what day of the week it was offhand and by the way it’s Monday and Jay says you can expect five hours of sleep tonight and then another two once we get there.  Where is there?  Gimme another marshmallow first.  And Adam had fed it to him and wiped the powdered sugar from the corner of Kris’ mouth with his thumb, two of his fingers curled under Kris’ chin.

Kris blinks awake again.  That had happened before things got weird.  One of those moments that Kris lived and died on and Adam remembers not at all; there are a few that go the other way, but Adam doesn’t like to talk about those.  Kris had wondered, afterwards, whether it had really happened, or whether it had happened but differently or whether he’d dreamed it or something, but at this point it’s not like he needs Adam to remember, so he lets it go as a lost cause.  Anyway, even though he hadn’t usually been all that on top of where they were or where they were going, he’s pretty clearheaded on the part where he’d found out on purpose, one afternoon.  He hadn’t known Adam would  _ feed _  him the marshmallow, though.

His phone buzzes, down by his feet where he’d thrown it so that he’d stop checking it, and it’s finally, finally, finally,  _ finally _ .  Kris lunges for it and also does this really cool move where he swings the guitar behind his back and out of the way, and then he’s facedown on the bed and telling Adam, “ _ Finally _ .”

Adam laughs.  “We only just got on the bus.”

“I feel high,” Kris informs him.  “I’m so tired I feel high.  And I’m seeing spots.  Like, inside my eyes.”

“O-kay.”  He can hear Adam settling.

“You’re in your bunk?”

“Mm hmm,” Adam says.  “You’re not actually high?”

“No.”  Kris thinks for a minute, separating days in his mind like rows on a square of—what’s it called, Fimo?  That polymer clay stuff that his mom likes.  Peels off strips of it and rolls them to make, like, beads.  She’d tried to get Katy to learn to use Fimo with her once.  Family project.  “No.  I  _ am _  going to sound like shit tomorrow, though.”

“You think?”  Adam is comfortable now, his voice all the way there on the phone.  “Would you drink some tea, please, baby?  Although in my own personal, possibly biased opinion…”  Adam sighs, maybe leaning back some more.  “Have I ever told you that you have a great phone voice?  Because you really, really do.”

Kris could say something sexy, now, but he isn’t very good at that even when his brain isn’t made of mush.  They’ve been separated by time zones for three days already, which means that Kris’ cumulative hours of sleep have gone way down, and it’s getting to the point where Cale has been asking him whether he wants to go onstage alone or what.  When Kris is exhausted, he doesn’t engage with other people all that well; like, he gets really quiet and forgets to talk and just watches everyone with his brain shut off.

He rolls onto his back and runs his fingers down the grooves of the seams in the hotel bedspread and closes his eyes so that he can’t see the room humming and quiet and empty around him.

“Talk to me,” Adam says, sweet in his ear.  “Let me hear you.”

He clears his throat.  “What do you want me to say?”

“Stock quotes,” Adam suggests.  “Greeting cards.”

“I don’t have any on me.”  Music, though.  He wakes up a little.  “I talked to Dave today about—” his brain shorts out on words, temporarily, and he yawns.  “That thing.”

“About the band?”  Adam is as pumped about this as Kris is—more, because he isn’t dead tired.  “Oh, you sound happy.  Good news?”

“He said he doesn’t see why not.”  Kris smiles, knows it’s his stupid smile, doesn’t care.  “I mean, I know it’s not for sure, but it’s something, right?  I think it’ll make a huge difference,” and he’s too tired to care that Adam’s heard this all before, too, when he’d talked it out the first ten times, “I mean, this way at least it will sound real, you know?  No matter what I—” he yawns again, cracking his jaw, bedspread slippery and cool against his cheek.

“You did warn them you were going to be more involved in production this time around.”  Adam sounds tired, too, but it’s isn’t the same as—how Kris feels—not like a person.  He’s like an island.  Or a puddle.

“Less pop, more rock?” Adam says.

“The band is psyched.”  Kris shifts his shoulders, settles deeper into the mattress.  Adam exhales, long and drawn-out.  “I told’em a million  _ times _  that nothing is for sure, but—I mean, you know.”

“You know it’s going to be amazing.”  Adam goes quiet for a minute and Kris traces his bellybutton with his one long nail, his pinky nail, and pretends it’s Adam and is drifting nicely along with that thought when Adam’s voice comes at him again, pretty-soft now, “Fuck, Kris, you don’t even know what you sound like right now.”

But even if Kris isn’t great at the dirty talk, there  _ are  _ things he knows how to do.  He shakes himself awake again.  “I thought,” he says, all slow, flattened Arkansas vowels like he knows Adam likes it, “you wanted to talk.”

There’s a thoughtful pause.  “I think Longineu has a newspaper,” Adam says.  “I could read you stock quotes.”

“Sounds awesome.”  Kris stretches, uncoils, folds his hands behind his head; smirks a little, enough that Adam has to feel it.

“Although,” Adam says meditatively, “it might be difficult to walk over there, what with how fucking hard I am for you right now.”

“Oh,” Kris says.

“Take off your shirt,” Adam says.

-

_ I miss you, Katy said.  It gets lonesome here. _

_ Come out to another show.  Come out to New York, we’re going to be there for a few days, and Adam said— _

_ I— _

_ Katy’s breath whistled through her teeth on an exhale. _

_ Okay.  I can do that. _

-

It’s one of the bigger venues they’ve been in, and Kris can’t see more than a blur when he looks out at the crowd.  He’s sweating like a pig, warm under his skin, warmth pressing right up against his face from the lights and the heat of the crowd.  Andrew’s going nuts all over the solo in “Is It Over,” which is basically par for the course at this point, but Kris can’t break his eyes away from the audience and fall into the music the way he usually does.  He grins at Cale, who grins back; grins at Andrew, who smiles a little; they feed off each other’s jamming like they always do, and Kris feeds off the  _ music _ like he always does, but he’s riding up on a swelling wave, riding up on the broad, faceless faces that are singing along with him, right in the palm of his hand.  They sing the last chorus; Kris plays the final chords.

He stops to think for a minute when it’s time for an encore.  The audience stops with him, clearly waiting, and that’s—that’s so  _ good _ ; it’s them, it’s him, it’s the music, it’s tonight, he has a guitar in his hands and he can do anything he wants.

He wipes his mouth and lets his water bottle fall and bounce and still. “You know what?” he says to them, fitting his fingers to the frets, “there’s this song that I’ve been messing around with,” and he starts in on Adam’s “Fever,” because it’s been stuck in his head for over a week now.

He loves this song.

When Adam does it, it’s a performance—widened eyes and tossed hair and stuttering hips—infused with Adam’s energy, with the game he plays with the music, peek-a-boo-ing at the audience, at anyone who’s looking.

That’s not how Kris plays, but he still loves the song, still has the opening riff all tight and cool like he’d gotten it down two nights ago on the bus, noodling around on his guitar for a while.  It’s always driven by the melody anyway, even when Adam sings it, the bounce of the verses springing up into the bridge and then breaking down so  _ good _  and hard in the chorus. 

Kris grins around the lyrics once the words start, and feels the crowd grin with him; drawls out “sexual tic-tac-toe,” passing casually over it instead of enunciating the way Adam does; sounds every inch the hick on “silly ménage à trois” and then jumps into the chorus with both feet, shaking his head back and forth and jamming hard.  He’s dancing a little, thinking of Adam on some other stage, and it’s a good night and a good crowd and Cale and the guys are actually getting in on it with him now, playing catch-up.  It’s a cover, playing someone else’s song for fun, nothing fancy, but they’re eating it up, and Kris can’t stop grinning, can’t stop playing it up with Cale every time they sing,  _ with this fever; fever. _

"Y'all liked that?” he asks the crowd when the song is over, and they roar at him, happy, because damn straight they liked it.  “Yeah,” Kris agrees, winding back down to earth, but still with the pulse of all of them right there in front of him, “yeah, of course you liked that,” Kris says, shaking his head at them, at himself, at how crazy and weird and kind of amazing it is that he can stand on a stage and nod along with his audience, “You gotta love Adam.”

-

Kris does a lot of things without thinking.  Not like he’s always putting his foot in it, but, like, most things don’t really  _ need  _ thinking first.

Doesn’t mean he never thinks.  He spends a lot of time thinking.  Just not necessarily in conjunction with  _ acting _ .

And he isn’t, no matter what Gina says, an idiot.

“Do you shut your damn brain off when you go up on stage?” Gina says, texting one-handed so she can chew her thumbnail.  “I swear, it’s like if one of you guys stops being an idiot the other one decides to pick up the slack.  Jill is ready to  _ kill  _ me—”

Jill should come on the road herself if she thinks she can do better, instead of delegating Kris’ PR or, like, whatever her job is, to other people. Not that Kris actually wants Jill around, but there’s something kind of irritating in the way they talk about  _ handling  _ him.  He’d like to see her try.

“Asshole,” Gina mutters, and then looks away from her phone long enough to glare at Kris.  Gina’s glares are scarier than most people’s because she can’t keep still.  She glares into Kris’ right eye, and then his left eye, and then taps out another email on her phone.

“I didn’t—” Kris says.

“And you won’t,” Gina snaps, still typing.  “You aren’t allowed to talk anymore.”

Gina isn’t usually this  _ mad _ .  But Jill really is capable of hiring a hit man.  That might explain it.

“You guys are freaking crazy,” Kris says.  “You have some master plan, I get it, but when Adam and me go public we’ll ask you for  _ help  _ with what’s the best way to do it, and all this stuff until then is—”

“Not up for discussion.”  Gina’s expressions are usually a jumble ** ** of all the things she does all at once, all the time—worries, plans, plots, listens, ignores, and is alternately pissed off and pleased—but the short look she shoots Kris now is confusing for its traces of both sympathy and reproach.  “You don’t have to like your damn medicine, but you do have to take it, Kris.”

Kris shrugs.  “You want me to have some image and whatever, I don’t really care, but you can’t really stop me from  _ talking _ .”

“Yeah, you don’t want to open that can of worms.”  She folds her arms.  “Listen, you know how this goes.  I know you do.  And I used to think it was cute that you think it doesn’t matter because you love your boyfriend, but now I’m pretty sure you don’t even get how much you need to fucking  _ listen _ to me, to Jill, to Roger—”

“I covered a song,” Kris says.  “That’s all I did.”

“…because it’s clear that you don’t know fuck all.”  Gina lowers her eyebrows at him.  “Yes, it isn’t a disaster, it isn’t a mess, no one really cares, but you can’t just  _ do  _ these things, and we need to know that you understand that.”

“I covered,” Kris says slowly, “a song.”

She looks almost sorry again; then something hardens in her face.  She tosses her hair back.  “You do realize that when the shit finally hits the fan, the assumption is going to be that you guys had an affair?  I mean, that’s a given.”

“I—” Kris says.

“And then, depending on how things fall out, one of you is going to get to be the villain.  Or maybe both.  My bets are on you, but Roger thinks the media would have more fun stringing up Adam.  Of course, it’s his job to assume that.”  She cocks her head.  “To be fair, Jill thinks that we can actually spin this into a great love story, get the media to run with  _ that _ , but that’s  _ her  _ job.  And anyway, Jill also thinks that you’re lovely and cooperative, so, you know.”

“Lovely?” Kris says.

“Direct quote, baby.”  Gina’s phone buzzes, but she ignores it, keeps her eyes trained on Kris, flinty.  “So, you know all that, right?  You’re just Zen and shit.  Must be nice.”

She’s trying to scare him.  No, duh, not really being subtle about that, but he actually  _ does  _ know, even if no one’s ever spelled it out like that before.   But if it’s going to happen anyway, they might as well do what they want. 

Kris is saving that argument for the day he feels like coming out, though.  Or possibly the day after.

“I need to get some sleep,” he says, and leaves her sitting in her chair.  The thing is that everyone’s all  _ think before you do something like this _ , and yeah, maybe Kris hadn’t thought it through, but he’s pretty sure he would have ended up right back here again if he had.  Which means he doesn’t worry enough, apparently, or more likely that he doesn’t get how these things work?   

He does worry, sometimes. Sometimes, in interviews, he looks across the table, and his heart starts pounding out of nowhere. _ _ Sometimes, like on Twitter or something, he’ll stumble across pictures of his friends—of Katy, back in Arkansas now—and all the sudden he’s cut off and alone and he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.  Sometimes he reads Adam’s press and thinks,  _ What if they knew?  _

Mostly, though, he wants to get back home to Adam and get on with it already.

-

_ Kris said: Everyone says the first year is supposed to be the hardest. _

_ You sound like you’re reading a manual, Katy said.  And I don’t think this is what they meant. _

_ Katy— _

_ We’ll work on it, Katy said. _

_ That’s—thank you. _

_ Look at you, all disappointed, Katy said. _

-

“You know,” Adam says, “if you missed me, you could have just said something.”

Kris spins around.  Adam is leaning against the wall just before where the hallway curves—long skinny jeans and dark pea coat and sunglasses, beanie hiding his hair.

He’s smirking.  He’s—something like beautiful except that it isn’t a word so much as a gut punch.  He’s  _ there _ .

“You really hate me, don’t you,” Kris hears Gina say, but Adam is shaking his head at him, lips pursed.

“You didn’t have to send out a distress signal live in concert.”

“You are insane.”  Kris tries to fight down his grin, because Adam  _ is  _ insane—ghost-white in the dim light of the hallway, looking back at Kris with a tiny smile like they need a second to just  _ see _  each other and then Adam is laughing and God, in about two seconds Kris is going to grab him and  _ bite  _ him, anywhere, just—

“Hey, focus on me for a second.”  Gina snaps her fingers.  Sharply.  In the air in front of Kris’ face.  He looks at her; she looks exhausted.  “Do not go anywhere.  Stay in this hallway.  I’ll be right back.”

Kris stares at her.  It’s weird; she’s like this constant reminder that he’s a product, now—just by being there—but sometimes it hits him hard, in contrast, that she’s a person.  He doesn’t even know if she’s any good at her job, but he doesn’t make it exactly easy for her.  She’s going to have to deal _ _ with this, now.  What does that even mean?  Why does it all  _ matter  _ so much?  Will DJs stop playing his songs over this?  Will people stop buying them?  Or is it about sponsors, or  _ something,  _ something else he doesn’t get about what’s going to happen next?

"Where are you?" Adam says. Kris blinks. Adam is right in front of him, simple questioning glance but all of his attention focused on Kris in that way he hasn't seen in so long—Gina is gone. Adam is cupping his cheek. Adam is—Kris jerks hard and steps back.

“Hey!”

Adam makes a face but lets his hand fall.  He grins.  “Like you have any right to lecture me.  You’ve lost the high ground permanently.”

Maybe Jim can make Kris another t-shirt, something that says  _ It was a freaking cover, give me a break _ .  “Yeah, not gonna say a word about the room full of reporters down the hall.”

Adam scrunches up his face, wincing.  “Point.”

—and Kris has  _ missed  _ this—he  _ needs  _ this, needs to be back in the mansion falling asleep to the sound of Adam’s voice, needs to be able to run cover ideas by Adam first—which is stupid because coming right up is L.A. and time off, which is like, better than the mansion and  _ Idol _ , God, for at least eight reasons right off the bat.  Except for the part where it matters, now, what happens next.

But Adam is here.  In disguise, anonymous, and he probably had way too much fun putting that outfit together.  Kris—could have helped help him pick it out, if he’d been around, not that Adam would need to go all incognito to visit Kris if Kris  _ were _  around.  His gut tightens; the way Adam is looking down at him right now is, um, much more incriminating than the way he’d been touching Kris’ face, even, if any of the beat reporters decide to stretch their legs, not that Kris really—

“Kris?”  It’s Carter, one of the interns, nervous, his voice a muffled echo across the screwy acoustics of the long hallway.  “Lizzie said—sound check?  They need you now?”

Adam’s angled away from Carter, but casually, not like he’s keeping his face averted because he doesn’t want to be seen.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Kris says.

“Um—”  Carter blinks.  He has watery eyes and allergies and always seems frazzled but is actually very on top of things, and funny if you can get him to relax.  He’s nowhere near being relaxed right now.  “’Kay.  I’ll just—” he turns away.

“Carter,” Kris says.  “Have you seen Gina?”

“Um, I think so.”  Carter’s forehead wrinkles.  “She was talking to Lizzie, I think?”

“Thanks, man,” Kris says.

He glances up at Adam to find Adam already gazing down at him.  Adam looks like he just got off a plane.  His eyes are messy with red, and there’s a white film at the corner of his mouth where his bottom lip is chapped.

“Well,” Adam says suddenly, carefully enunciated like he’s reciting lines, but he doesn’t say anything else, and it hangs there like it’s waiting for a period.  Well, well, well.

“You guys can come to sound check,” Gina says, appearing at the end of the hall where Carter had come from, and Adam pushes off of the wall and they follow her.

-

_ Are you scared? Katy said, the pen in her hand shaking a little above the dotted line marked with an X. _

_ Of what? _

_ I— _

_ Katy stopped, uncertain. _

_ Any of it. _

_ No, Kris said. _

_ - _

Adam has Kris up against the door the second it’s closed behind them.  “Really?  You want  _ hang out  _ with your  _ friend  _ now?”

“I—”  Kris stops protesting because Adam is kissing him, quick, hungry kisses that he can’t seem to commit to long enough to finish.  “What was I supposed to say?  Tell me my schedule tomorrow, Lizzie, I need to have sex?”

“No, right, that was fine.  I’ve been thinking that we need to hang out more.”  Adam has Kris pinned to the door with one hand, and the other is prowling Kris’ back, skimming the backs of his thighs and then hauling him in close; Adam is rock hard, and a soft place to fall.  Kris grabs the back of Adam’s neck, pulling himself up, but Adam is already sinking down to his knees and nimbly unbuckling Kris’ belt.  Heat floods Kris—pools in his groin—but—it’s quickly followed by a flash of getting—of  _ doing _  it against the door and then of Adam—

“How long do we have?” he hears himself say, deep and breathless. 

Adam stops abruptly.  He keeps his hand on Kris’ belt.  “’Til whatever time you leave tomorrow.  My flight’s at ten.”

So, like, hours.  They can take forever getting naked or just, like, do whatever, but Kris has no idea which he’d rather.  And Adam’s mouth is on his again, slow lips and slow tongue, like Kris gave good advice and now he has to take it.  Kris closes his eyes.  Adam’s hand is still on his belt, and he uses it to tug Kris towards the bed until they fall down on top of it and Kris tumbles a little way away from Adam before he can reach out a hand to steady himself.  He sits up; Adam watches as he kicks off his shoes and wiggles his dusty bare toes on the blanket.

“C’mon, c’mere,” Kris says.

Adam crawls over to him.  He sucks on where Kris’ hip juts out above the waistband of his jeans; he pushes his shirt up to suck a kiss onto his bellybutton, and then keeps kissing and trailing his teeth and tongue up and up and up, tugging Kris’ shirt along as he goes, until he looks up when he’s, like, right about to put his teeth on Kris’ nipple, and—

Yeah, this is weird.

“It’s like there’s a countdown clock in my head,” Adam says.

Which, okay, but it’s not like they don’t want this.  Kris rolls on top of Adam—sits, meticulously, right on his dick; feels it nudge up hard against him.  He nudges back.  Adam stares at him, then collapses back into the pillows.

“Fuck, I’m ruining my own surprise visit.”

Kris rolls his eyes.  “Nothing’s  _ ruined _ , drama queen—”

Adam drops his hands from where they’re covering his face and uses them to pull Kris down onto his chest instead, and Kris takes three seconds and decides that this is going to become his new favorite spot.  Nose to nose, close enough to see every freckle and pore, to duck his head down into Adamand breathe him in, to feel every rise and fall of Adam’s belly under him.  Adam has his hands on Kris’ ass, which isn’t bad, either—moving, kneading, oh _ fuck _ , Kris rocks up into them.  The air conditioner switches on, an approving hum.

Adam’s exhale sounds like surprise.  Kris’ hips come down on his, and this— _ this _  is where they’re going to start, close and thrusting against each other, thrusting faster, Adam’s hands all over him, Adam tearing at his clothes, Adam breathing his name when they’re practically sinking into each other’s skin.  They haven’t done this enough for Kris to feel like he has any idea what he’s doing except touching Adam—or being touched by Adam, being rolled over and held down and rocked into over and over again—but it’s  _ good _ .  They can do complicated later.

Kris comes first and is back to himself with time to watch Adam, whose hair is sticking up all over the place and who smiles lazily at Kris and thrusts hard between his thighs.

Sometimes Kris looks at Adam just to see him.  Everyone’s always watching Adam—watching him be silly, or smart, or wear too much makeup under bright lights.  Adam is a force, and he’s only partly trying to be—it’s fun for him, or funny or something, to test the lines other people draw for themselves just to show that he can, and it’s like he was born for the attention that gets him.  But another thing altogether is the way Adam likes eye contact; he waits, when he’s talking to you, for you to say something, show yourself, speak up, and lots of people drop their eyes so he’ll let them off the hook instead.  Probably don’t even know why they do it, since it’s just Adam.

Kris has always had a harder time looking away.

“What am I going to do with you?” Adam murmurs, resting his hand on Kris’ cheek, fingers splayed.

Kris shrugs and pulls Adam down again.


End file.
